Cinderella is dead and one of Odin’s hellhounds has gone rogue in The Woodcutter, Kate Danley's noir remaking of the complete works of the Brothers Grimm. You've never read a fairy tale like our Kindle Nation eBook of the Day before.

This went live around 3:00AM (PST). Yesterday, I ranked 44,378 in Amazon Kindle sales. As of this moment? I'm 8,997 in the Kindle Store, as well as:

#40 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fantasy > Historical

#58 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Historical

I know in the grand scheme of things, rankings mean about as much as "Student of the Week" on the 2nd grade chalkboard, but still... This book was my baby for a long time. It holds a very special place in my heart. I love the characters that live in its pages. When I published it, it was like sending my first child off to the first day of school. It feels really nice to see the Woodcutter making friends out there on the playground. The internet is an ugly place and I'm sure a bully is going to come along sooner or later to punch him in the nose. But having bandaids made of five star reviews and kind words are a powerful kiss to make any owie go away.

UPDATE at 11:45AM
I just beat out Tolkien in the hourly bestsellers list (HA!). Come on. Induldge me. This is the only hour of my life I will be able to make that claim.

Well, the ride has appeared to come to a close and my rocket like ascent hit its peak and has begun the steady slide back down into the anonymnity of the 600k+ other e-books on Amazon. But as I started moving back down the charts, I think it is lovely and poetic this last screen grab. All is as it should be.

Friday, January 14, 2011

You know what's hard? Finding the time to write about the cool stuff as it is going down as opposed to filling this blog with meaningless dribble in the hopes that something cool will someday happen.

So, this is what's going on.

Monday night I found out I was moved up to the main company at the Acme Comedy Theater, which is super cool. Working with these folks and getting to be a talentless hanger on who can ride their coattails... I mean... learning how they do what they do and is pretty much the reason I have spent so much time at this theater. Formats are changing this year and shows are shifting back to the more golden age of things and I think that it will all add up to the greater general good in the long run.

I'm also taking a movement comedy workshop with this incredible guy named Joshua Zehner. You might know him from Second City or as the director of Cirque Bezerk or as the guy who created a little Cirque du Soleil show Kooza. I have a couple buddies who went through Ringling's Clown College back when it still was and one of those ladies built a theater in her garage and has been asking people she knows to come out and share their wealth of experience and all around awesomeness. And I was invited into this workshop.

I can't tell you how good it feels to create some art for arts sake. No one is in the workshop because they are hoping this class will get them picked up for pilot season. It's been so long since I've gotten to act in a style that feels... natural. It is pure joy to just frickin' play.

Saturday night, I went and saw the Thrilling Adventure Hour at the Largo. I had bought a ticket almost a month ago in the hopes of seeing Nathan Fillion and Paul F. Tompkins and Sam Levine and Mark Gagliardi and and and, and THEN got a tweet that my old buddy Matt Braunger from early sketch days was going to be in it.

The show was so much fun and left me aching to do REAL theater again. It was like watching a masterclass. The comedic genius up on that stage... It was like having all the secret ingredients to Coca-cola in one room. Someone should have made sure a vice president of comedy was in a bunker somewhere because too many great minds were on that stage at one time.

To prep, I went out and did an open mic at The Spot in Culver City. Standing in that backroom were some HUGE names in comedy grinding out the kinks in their routines just like me. I had to seriously talk myself into getting out of my car and walking into that cafe. I wanted to quit comedy forever. I cursed whatever cosmic force had suckered me into doing it again. By the time the open mic was done, I wanted to do nothing but standup for the rest of my life OMG BFFs 4EVAH!

The show at Flappers was great. Tianana, Mr. Tianana, Miss Bliss, L.M., Mangy Dog Joe, Greggie Honey, Dinda, and MattF all came out to cheer for me. The theater was packed to its gills. I was first up on the list, which usually means you're taking the bullet. You go into it knowing you are gettin' zero laughs. You're the chum in the water to attract the funny.

But that ended up not being the case at all.

The audience was ON IT from the moment I got up there. They caught every joke. Laughed loudly. I haven't felt that good about a set in awhile. My new stuff went over like gangbusters.

And that club is seriously my new favorite club in town. Comfy seating, cheap food and drinks, nice people... And they had an actual greenroom for the comics and took care of us better than I've been cared for in most legit theaters in town. A+ Awesome.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

1/4
I started following some "How to Market Your Self Published Book" blogs
Reached out more to the self publishing community
Researched getting a table at the LA Times Festival of Books
Restarted Google ads
Wrote a segment for my current novel that solves a lot of the logic issues

1/5
I went to an open mic and tested out some of my new jokes. Stand up is like a monster roller coaster - scares the crap out of you while you're in the queue, but afterwards you can hardly wait to go again. And I'll be going again tomorrow night. *gulp*

On the waitlist for a Power Wow over at The Groundlings (four weeks of class with a show at the end).

Monday, January 3, 2011

-Worked on the standup. God, why did I agree to do this? It's SO SCARY and I am so not ready to get back into this game.
-Set up my author page on Amazon.
-Did some networking with other authors.
-Submitted to the one lousy job that wasn't a "non-union stripper okay with frontal nudity for copy and credit" on Actors Access.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

As fair warning, any post with the title "One Thing" in the subject heading is going to be completely self indulgent, boring and dancing right on that edge of egocentric narcassism.

But I need to keep accountable, so I'm gonna post them. Don't feel obliged to read. This is all for my own edification and to keep me honest. I feel like I've got some deciding to do here in the real near future and I want to make sure I'm not half assing my way through things and then whining because nothing good ever happens for me. My brain will tell me I'm working my arse off when I'm slacking and slacking when I'm killing myself. Gotta get things down in black and white so that the godshonesttruth can't be twisted by my warped little monkey mind.

So that's what these posts are for.

You have been warned.

Last night, I had a dream I entered a cake baking competition. We were asked to go into the kitchen two by two to get the instructions from the judges. Turns out, I entered the contest and didn't have all the ingredients. But then they told me I had 7,000 hours to bake my cake.

And when I woke, I figured out that's what I'm doing with my life. I'm jumping into the game while missing the eggs and right sized cake pans, but then someone comes along and reminds me that I have 7,000 hours to complete this task.

But I do have to get in the game and I do have to make sure I get the eggs and cake pans BEFORE the judges call time.

So, today I kept my computer off after I woke up and worked on my stand up set some more. Goll, cutting things down to under the 7 minute mark just makes my teeth ache. But I walked away feeling like I had gotten a soul massage.

I also used some moisturizer on my face. Wooo.

Giddy, Mr. Giddy, and I met up to exchange gifts (more about that in a real blog post, not this lame "keeping track of things" posting) and went to the Hollywood Museum of Film and Television over at the Max Factor Building on Hollywood and Highland, which seriously, so cool.

I wrote some more on the new book I'm working on.

Tonight, I'm heading out to see a friend's standup show at the club I'm at on Thursday so that the room isn't a completely surprise to me.

And a buddy asked if I wanted to take a movement class with a friend of hers who happens to be a world class movement specialist, and I decided I'd be a fool to turn down an offer like that. So I email back and said yes.